VAR will be good for football – when all the "little gremlins" are ironed out of the system, says Martin O’Neill.

The Nottingham Forest boss believes his side would certainly have benefited from the system at the Hawthorns in midweek, when Dwight Gayle’s dive earned West Brom a penalty from which they secured a 2-2 draw.

The VAR system is to be introduced in the Premier League fully from the start of next season and, while things did not go entirely smoothly when it was utilised during the World Cup in Russia, O’Neill believes it will become a positive tool, once match officials become accustomed to the nuances of it.

Dwight Gayle is fouled for a penalty in the last minutes of the game (Image: Getty Images)

It will only be used in the top flight for now, but O’Neill believes it is a step in the right direction, if people are patient as any issues are ironed out.

“I will be a fan of VAR. We had a bit of fun with it in Russia, obviously,” said O’Neill.

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“But I think that when they iron out all the little gremlins – and I think they will – I believe it will improve things.

“People are talking about how long it takes; about people celebrating a goal, perhaps, and then finding out that it is not a goal. That happens anyway.

“If they improve the quality – and it was a learning process in the World Cup – it will be a good thing, when it comes into the Premier League next season.”

There are currently no concrete plans to utilise VAR in the Football League – although O’Neill makes no bones about the fact it might have been a useful tool for the Reds on Tuesday, when they were twice undone by poor decisions from referee Lee Mason.

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After being deceived by Gayle’s theatrics – and the Baggies striker has now been charged with ‘successful deception of a match official’ and could face a two-match ban as a result – to award a penalty to the home side, Mason then failed to award a clear spot-kick at the other end, when Joe Lolley was clearly pulled back in the box.

Both were decisions that would probably have been given differently, with the opportunity to look at things again via VAR and could have seen Forest emerge with victory, rather than returning home with only a point.

But O’Neill preferred to focus on the performance of his side, rather than to complain too bitterly about the decisions that went against them.